The report, commissioned by online security company McAfee, calculates that 33 terrawatts of electricity were used sending this spam. Put another way, that’s enough to provide energy to 1.5 million US homes for a year or the energy consumption of 3.1 million cars during the same period.

As most of the this electricity would have been generated by coal-fired power stations, 17 million tonnes of carbon dioxide would have been released into the atmosphere. That works out to 0.2% of the total CO2 emissions.

Interestingly, the report says that viewing the spam accounted for half of these emissions. Opening and reading spam uses extra electricity.

The effect of spam was demonstrated when a spamming company, McColo was disconnected by its ISP. The number of spam emails sent dramatically reduced by 70% for a short period until the spammers managed to re-establish themselves. That 70% drop was equivalent to taking 2.2 million cars off the road for the same period.

So as well as protecting your computer from viruses, you can help reduce global warming by not opening spam.

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The Carbon Trust calculates that about 21% of businesses’ energy expenditure is wasted. In monetary terms, that’s an incredible £2.4 billion annually.

Take office lights. Not switching the lights off before going home at night in a typical small office annually uses enough energy to power a three-bedroom house’s heating for a nearly five months.

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As you’re biting into that nice, juicy king-size burger, have you ever thought how much you’re contributing to global warming?

I hadn’t. Cattle, though, are a major problem for the environment. As cows are busy munching away in their pastures, their multiple stomachs are producing methane.

Methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas, 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide for global warming. According to The Journal of Animal Science, livestock produce between 250 and 500 litres of methane every single day! At the top end of the estimate, that enough to fill 250 large bottles of Coke.

And what’s worse, there are estimated to be 1.5 billion livestock around the globe. If the average animal produces 350 litres of methane daily, then that’s 525 billion litres of methane being released into the atmosphere each day. And then there are about a billion sheep and 800 million goats.

What about pigs? There are a billion pigs, but they produce much less methane than cows.

As countries have got richer, demand for meat has increased in the last 50 years by about 500 per cent.

The livestock sector is by far the single largest use by humans of land. Grazing occupies 26 percent of the Earth‘s terrestrial surface, while feed crop production requires about a third of all arable land.

Expansion of grazing land for livestock is a key factor in deforestation, especially in Latin America. Some 70 percent of previously forested land in the Amazon is used as pasture, and feed crops cover a large part of the reminder. About 70 percent of all grazing land in dry areas is considered degraded, mostly because of overgrazing, compaction and erosion attributable to livestock activity.

There are other serious problems with livestock that contribute to global warming. The United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) estimated that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport.

Livestock farming accounts for nine percent of man-made carbon dioxide emissions, most of it due to expansion of pastures and arable land for feed crops. It generates even bigger shares of emissions of other gases with greater potential to warm the atmosphere: as much as 37 percent of methane from humans’ activities, mostly from fermentation by cows and other ruminants, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide created by man’s activities, mostly from manure.

According to the UN FAO, the average American eats about 275 pounds of meat per year (more than any other country). The average Chinese eats 108 pounds per year (Earth Policy Insitute, 2005). According to a 2005 FAO study on meat consumption between 1998 – 2002, the average meat consumption per Chinese is 52 kg, compared to Americans at 125 kg, and Britain at 80 kg.   note:  there are smaller countries which (on average, per person) consume a little more meat than the US – 300 mil. people (for example: New Zealand – 4 mil. people, Denmark 5.5 mil. people, and some countries which consume around the same amount of meat. If the whole world ate meat at the American rate, only 2/5 of the world’s population (2.5 billion people) would be fed (Lester Brown).

Some countries are taking the problem seriously. For example, Germany’s environment agency has recommended that Germans should eat less meat, if they want to lower their carbon footprint and stop global warming.

Speaking at Berlin’s Grüne Woche (Green Week), Andreas Troge, president of the UBA (Germany’s environment agency) said:

“We must rethink our high meat consumption. I recommend people return to the Sunday roast and to an orientation of their eating habits around those of Mediterranean countries.”

Troge said that agriculture caused 15% of Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions. Meat production, he explained, was the most energy-intensive form of farming. Germans derive a high percentage of their calories from meat, 39% compared to the Italians’ 25%.

The US Environmental Protection Agency wanted to tax cattle, but this plan seems to have been dropped after protests from the powerful farming lobby.

So next time I’m in the supermarket, Quorn burgers are going in my basket!

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Fast forward to the 21st Century and the complex, interlinking, global nature of trade. Most of us have no idea how and where the products we consume are made.

Take my hybrid bike. I decided that I was going to reduce my carbon footprint by cycling more. The bike came from a well-known shopping site. It turned out to be made in Bangladesh and imported into the UK by a British company. I have no idea whether the aluminium frame was produced in a safe, ethical and environmentally-friendly way. Was it built in a toxic sweatshop? Was the factory polluting the local water supply?There’s no real way of knowing.

And what about the bike’s components like the gears and the wheels? They’ve probably come from China, along with all the accessories which I bought like panniers. How were they produced?

I’m attempting to be green by buying a bike, but I don’t know the full consequences of my action on the environment.

But what if I could calculate the carbon, social and biological footprints of my actions with ease? That’s what psychologist Daniel Goleman describes as Ecological Intelligence. In his new book of the same name, Goleman, the author of the bestseller Emotional Intelligence, describes how we can use the new science of industrial ecology to make informed decisions about the products that we buy.

Ecological Intelligence will be released in the UK on 28th May2009. You’ll find a detailed review in a forthcoming post.

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The populations of the wealthy nations are getting larger. According to Dr Edwards, “UK health surveys estimate fatness has increased from an average body mass index (BMI) of 26 to 27 in the last ten years. That’s equivalent to about half a stone (7 lbs) for every person”. This is worrying as anyone who has a BMI above 25 is medically considered overweight, whilst over 30 is the medical definition of obese.

Signs that the people are getting heavier are increasing. For example in the UK, ambulances and hospital beds are being strengthened as patients are becoming increasingly large. Even coffins are being made in larger sizes.

So how does this affect global warming? Firstly, over-consumption is a problem. According to Dr Edwards, food production accounts for about 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Meat, in particular, is a problem as it takes more resources to produce than plants, thereby emitting more greenhouse gases. Cows are also well known for their particular contribution to CO2 emissions. “ World demand for meat is increasing to match that of Britain and America”, says Dr Edwards.

Secondly, the fatter we are, the more likely we are to drive rather than walk or cycle for short journeys. Again this creates more greenhouse gases.

Thirdly, it takes more fuel to transport heavier people. It’s estimated that 40% of Americans are obese with 300 million worldwide. Take flying as an example. United Airlines has recently sparked controversy in the US for requiring obese people to buy two seats on busy routes.

Carrie Padian, president of the Fat Rights Coalition complained that airline seats are too small and that “ if United really cared about the comfort of their passengers, they would order planes with more space for everyone”.

But flying efficiently as possible and reducing the environmental effects are all about maximizing load factors for a given weight. The fewer passengers on a flight, the higher the CO2 emissions per passenger, contributing even more to global warming.

Most of us need to lose weight (this writer included), so perhaps the environmental impact of being overweight is another incentive to lose the inches.

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